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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Privateer Press Smash-A-Thon Wrap Up

This past Saturday, Gamer's Sanctuary hosted a Privater Press open games day in the store. It was a good chance to play demos for some of their most popular games. I of course am a big Warmachine fan and brought my army to play. But I was really eager to try out the new Iron Kingdoms RPG game. Every game demo played gave a gold coin that was worth a $1 in store credit. I also played their semi-cooperative board game, Level 7. Here are some quick reviews of the games I played.

I played the new Level 7 game at Gencon and recently with Maelstrom who picked up a copy on his recent visit to Michigan. For a cooperative, tile-building game, it has some neat mechanics going for it. However, the focus on managing your character's fear level seems a bit too easy to manipulate with cards. I haven't played all of the scenarios, but the game winning condition seems a bit too random for my tastes. All in all, I would give "Level 7" 3 out 5 stars (a fun game as part of a beer-n-pretzels board game night).

I managed to get a pick up game of Warmachine against a Cygnar player. We played a 50 pt game and we both had fully painted armies (which makes the game even better).

My Retribution seem to match up well against Cygnar and I was able to win by caster kill. I really enjoy Warmchine as an occasional alternate to 40k and Fantasy. The Warmachine/Hordes rules are really well written, 6 out of 5 stars (any fan of mini war games should have a Warmachine or Hordes army).

The big highlight of the day was getting to try out the new Iron Kingdom RPG. For the demo game we ran through the four player "quick start" scenario available from Privateer Press. We had four players and we used the pre-made characters for the scenario. I played an Investigater/Arcanist and got to experience some of the will-weaving spell casting rules.

Privateer Press did a great job supplying everything needed to play the quick-start adventure. Anyone can download the module which includes printable maps and characters. Of course, we quickly replace our paper versions with Iron Kingdom miniatures from Warmachine and Hordes.

I have played a lot of role playing games with different game mechanics. I was impressed with how well done the rules for IKRPG are. The game borrows heavily from Warmachine/Hordes rules and they translated well to a role-playing game. It definitely was fun and I look forward to getting into a longer campaign. For experiencing the Iron Kingdoms beyond Warmachine/Hordes, I give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars (a fun role playing experience but probably won't replace my 3.5 D&D or Pathfinder gaming).
It was definitely a fun day that almost felt like a mini version of a Privateer Press Games Day. I used the coins I earned to pick up another solo for my Retribution. Thanks for reading!